Romney zooms to 40% in Fox poll of GOP primary voters

posted at 10:10 am on January 16, 2012 by Ed Morrissey

So much for the 25% cap … or can we rely on this poll to make that determination? Fox News takes a national poll and finds that Mitt Romney has jumped 17 points in five weeks among likely GOP primary voters nationwide, with Rick Santorum edging into a distant second over Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul. However, the sample is questionable for the primary question, if solid on general-election and political issues.

Fox takes a sample of 906 registered voters (landline and cell), which breaks out into a D/R/I of 41/39/20, which gets a good balance between Democrats and Republicans but oversamples both at the expense of independents. From this, the pollster gets 365 primary voters, which it claims as “likely voters,” even though this is the same subset of Republicans in the sample marked “registered voters.” However, this is the same methodology used in the Fox poll series for the last several months, and about the average for sample sizes on the primary question, so the series can at least be expected to reflect trending.

In the beginning of December, Romney got 23% for second place to Newt Gingrich’s 36%. Prior to that, Romney scored 22% in November, 20% in October, and so on; his highest level of support came in July and August at 26% in both months. Now, however, Romney has suddenly spiked upward to 40%. On the question of managing the economy — the issue that used to be the central battleground in the 2012 election — Romney scores 44% over Gingrich’s 17%. He also beats Gingrich in the potential to work with Congress, 35/28, an issue that Gingrich raises repeatedly. Rick Santorum, however, wins recognition as the “true conservative” with 29% — but Romney comes in second at 15%, just ahead of Gingrich at 14% and Ron Paul at 13%.

GOP voters perceive Newt Gingrich as running the most negative campaign in this year’s Republican presidential contest, according to a new poll on Monday.

Twenty-nine percent of registered, Republican voters said Gingrich’s campaign has been the “nastiest” this cycle, according to the national survey released by Fox News.

Mitt Romney leads the field for positive campaign perception at 27 percent.

Don’t forget that just four weeks ago, Gingrich was winning plaudits for his insistence on running a positive campaign. That’s quite a turnaround, and an indication of just how much backfire Gingrich has taken with the Bain attacks.

While we consider that, don’t miss Barack Obama’s numbers in this poll, either. After going into majority disapproval in December with a 44/51 approval rating, the President has come back a bit to 45/47. His favorability remains surprisingly weak at 51/46, though, so he doesn’t have much more upside to explore. There may be something to the argument that Republicans would be better served to wrap up the internecine fight quickly, but given how many months there are to go to the general election, it doesn’t appear to be a big worry at the moment.

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-Tax Loopholes:
Reagan: “Tax loopholes have been closed, making the tax structure more equitable.”
Reagan Q&A: “Mr. Weisman. But in addition to that, you’re also talking about loopholes, tax breaks, whatever you want to call it.
“The President. I hesitate, I won’t answer that now, as to what all will be in the study. We are, as I said before, in our present proposal, we are changing some that we believe, while they were undoubtedly well-intentioned, they have led to some taking an, getting an advantage that is denied to others. Where that is true, then that should be corrected, whether you have a deficit or have a tax reform or not.
– Fees:
Reagan: “Good tax policy decrees that wherever possible a fee for a service should be assessed against those who directly benefit from that service. Our highways were built largely with such a user fee — the gasoline tax. I think it makes sense to follow that principle in restoring them to the condition we all want them to be in.”
Reagan: “These taxes and fees will raise approximately $1 billion per year over the next five years, which should provide adequate, stable, and equitable financing for the program. I strongly believe that funds used to pay for the program should be generated entirely through these dedicated sources, not the general treasury.”
Reagan: “The third component of the deficit reduction program involves user fees, or more appropriately, the recovery of costs borne by the taxpayers generally, but that predominantly benefit a limited group of businesses, communities or individuals … it is simply inexcusable and intolerable that yacht owners escape without paying even a small part of the Coast Guard services; or that commercial and general aviation are not paying the cost of the air traffic control system that ensures their safety; or that ship and barge operators do not pay a fair share of the costs of waterways maintained by the Federal Government. Our user fee package corrects these and similar shortcomings in current budget policy and will contribute significantly toward reducing the deficit.”

The dreaded COWPIES-For-Brains bacterial infection, first indicated in Iowa, that morphed into the east coast version, Mhit-For-Brains, appears to have been spread to the entire lower 48 by the STUPID Party establishment!! And I thought we were doomed with the Jack@$$-In-Chief, but now the STUPID Party establishment has infected the entire country with Mhit-For-Brains!?! Nice Goin’, STUPID Party!!! Once again, you have snatched Defeat from the jaws of victory by Jamming another guaranteed loser down conservative throats!!! RINO Romney will be beaten like a rented mule by Axelrod and company in just the same way RINO Romney’s PACS have abjectly violated the 11th commandment. C’mon, when the last LOSER endorses the LOSER he beat, what do you get?? ANOTHER LOSER!!!!! We will only have the worthless, weak, snot-nosed STUPID Party establishment to thank for this debacle!!! Absolutely NO GUTS!!!

Your response to my “closed minded ABRtard” comment is an implicit admission that you are, indeed, a “closed minded ABRtard”.

So,

Tell me,

WHY should I waste my time attempting to pry open your closed mind?

Gunlock Bill on January 16, 2012 at 6:08 PM

Well I think the best reason is you just aren’t informed on the candidates in general and I don’t think you are smart enough to engage in the kind of doublespeak required to defend RomneyCare while opposing Obamacare.

You post on here more often than I do, but somehow that’s not spam. There’s not a thread on Hotair on any given day that you have not posted on.

And the reality is, you don’t have anything intelligent to say. It’s just brown nosing Romney. It’s almost like you want to have sex with the guy and all this talking about his record is a distraction to your love affair.

I never seen you not on here when I’ve been posting. If I post too much, or spam as you call it, you are doing the same thing.

I don’t care that you do it, just want to expose your hypocrisy. I’d go with another line of attack on me, probaboy bring up my joke about my gay college rooomate handcuffing me to the bed and taking liberteries. :)

Reagan is moderate’s favorite prop now that he’s dead. They parade him around as though he was a moderate and put thoughts and beliefs his head that don’t jive with what he was in life. It’s ghoulish but this is politics.

Could you be more of a blockhead? My point was that you are talking about S-E-X again. The only thing more annoying than your tedious monologues are mimes, and crazy people who stand at the corner of 42nd Street wearing a sandwich board, proclaiming the end is near.

Reagan is moderate’s favorite prop now that he’s dead. They parade him around as though he was a moderate and put thoughts and beliefs his head that don’t jive with what he was in life. It’s ghoulish but this is politics.

Dr. Tesla on January 16, 2012 at 7:04 PM

Reagan started out as a Democrat way back in the day and he moved to the right as he got older, much like most people tend to do (except for a few HA forum dwellers here and there).

But you should read some of his earlier writings and political statements. He’s not that far off from Romney’s progression through the political sphere.

Everyone harps on Romney’s “flip flopping” on various topics, but all his changes show me is that he’s a man that is able to rethink things when new evidence presents itself.

We all grow, all of our positions change over time, that’s just the nature of growing up. We learn things as we move along in our lives and our experiences color our decisions in how we feel about certain things, but that’s a good thing.

Quit being so hard nosed in your opinions folks.

Evolve! Evolution isn’t a bad thing. Our feelings and ideas evolve as we grow and learn.

Reagan wasn’t “Reagan” until he had served a term. In the 1980 election, Reagan was…Romney.

Rational Thought on January 16, 2012 at 4:34 PM

ROFL…all you can do is laugh at such. There is no Reagan-Romney analogy, however hard the Mittbots try to create one. Reagan was grassroots and a conservative — in fact, he was thought to be too conservative to have a chance at winning. Let’s see, Reagan and Romney were both Republican governors, were/are both male and had/have dark hair. There the resemblance ends.

I think the good Professor over at Legal Insurrection has nailed it:

“We are on a path to nominate someone who campaigned against Reagan, campaigned against the Contract with America, campaigned against those who are pro-Life, campaigned against 2d Amendment rights, campaigned against conservatism, and designed and enacted the precursor to Obamacare from which he will not back away.”

Let that sink in for a moment, all you rock-ribbed conservatives.

Snorkdoodle Whizbang on January 16, 2012 at 3:57 PM

Jacobson? He’s obviously a socialist anti-capitalist O-bot who’s also working either in the interests of the fat, greasy scialist Gingrich or that stupid hick from Wasilla with the knocked-up daughter or that bumbling fool from Texas and is going to vote for Obama anyway. /

Evolve! Evolution isn’t a bad thing. Our feelings and ideas evolve as we grow and learn.

SauerKraut537 on January 16, 2012 at 7:18 PM

The problem you have with this logic is that ROmney still stands behind RomneyCare and says it was a grand idea despite the fact it was a disaster for all hte obvious, predictable reasons. He hasn’t evolved on that issue. He’s flip flopped on every other issue so if he isn’t against flip flopping in general, I got to think he’s still for government involved in your healthcare. We won’t know unless he’s president so I think it’s smart for conservatives to vote for somebody else in the primary while we still have a choice. Why take the risk he’s changed if we can vote for somebody else? It doesn’t have to be Romney.

Could you be more of a blockhead? My point was that you are talking about S-E-X again. The only thing more annoying than your tedious monologues are mimes, and crazy people who stand at the corner of 42nd Street wearing a sandwich board, proclaiming the end is near.

Buy Danish on January 16, 2012 at 7:16 PM

THe reality is the % of my posts about gays and S-E-X are not even 1%, yet you wig out about it. Like I have said, some people get batty about the gay issues for whatever reason. To me, it’s just another issue in the roladex of issues in the game of life.

I am going to talk about what I want to talk about in the way I want to talk about it. You should know that by now. Stop being a control freak. You are not going to tame this horse.